Part Seven
A sort of drowsy contentment pervaded the lobby well into the evening. The meal had been eaten with great delight from the human members of the group, and with only slightly less relish on Angel’s part. Now, more than full, they relaxed in the lobby in full sight of the Christmas tree. Connor had gone beyond drowsy to actually sleeping, curled up with his head in his father’s lap. The rest of them just relaxed and for once talked about empty nothings.
Except when Buffy and Angel’s eyes happened to meet. Though they said nothing and did nothing to act on it, their eyes weren’t so empty. Not empty at all. And every time this would happen, Gunn and Cordelia would exchange knowing looks that the two of them completely missed.
Abruptly, Cordelia yawned. She looked at her watch and sighed. “I should be going home,” she said.
Angel looked at her. “Are you sure?” he asked.
She nodded, sitting up a bit straighter. “Yeah, I’m sure. Or am going to fall asleep right where I sit.”
Gunn stood beside her. “I should go, too,” he said.
Angel looked back and forth between the two of them. “Well...” he said at last, shifting Connor from his lap so that he could stand beside them.
“It was a nice evening,” Cordelia said at last. “You know...I never really had an evening like this with my family for Christmas. It was always some huge event where I barely saw my parents. This...this was nice.”
Angel smiled. “It was,” he agreed, walking with the two of them now towards the doors.
Gunn nodded at Buffy as he went to leave. “Nice meeting you,” he said. “And the food was excellent.”
Buffy grinned. “Thanks. And you too.”
Now right at the doorway, Angel hesitated in his farewells. “Are you sure you have to go?” he asked Cordelia in a hushed tone.
“Yes, I’m sure,” she said, looking at him sternly. She, too, lowered her voice. “I said it before, and I’ll say it again. I’m not your chaperone, Angel.”
“I’m not asking...”
Her look cut him off. “Oh, please,” she muttered. “You’re acting like you’re afraid to be alone with Buffy. Personally, I’m a little afraid to have you alone with Buffy. But I’m still leaving.”
“I’m not afraid,” Angel protested. It sounded a little pathetic to his own ears.
“Sure,” she said disbelieving. She gave a small sigh and dropped her voice to a barely audible whisper. “You can’t leave it like this,” she said. “Whatever is going on between the two of you, if you don’t work something out – anything at all – you’re going to be miserable for the next month. And miserable to work with. And then Wesley will come back from England to find you all mopey again and wonder what the hell we all did to you.”
Angel looked back over his shoulder at Buffy. She was sitting, awaiting his return, watching Connor curled up asleep. “You’re right,” he admitted.
“About the mopey thing or the working something out?”
Angel gave her a forced smile. “I guess you’ll find out in two days, won’t you?”
Cordelia gave him a happily annoyed sigh. “Okay, we’re going now. We know when we’re not welcome anymore,” she teased.
“Bye, Cordelia. Gunn,” Angel said, his tone laced with amusement.
He stood there for a long moment after the door had closed behind the two of them. Finally, he braced himself, turned, and caught Buffy’s eyes. She was standing now, watching him, a serious look on her face.
“She’s right, you know,” Buffy said after a moment.
“Hmm?”
“Cordelia,” she explained. “She’s not as quiet as she thinks she is.”
Angel nodded, knowing exactly what she was referring to now. “Let’s put Connor to bed first,” he said softly. “Then we’ll talk.”
Buffy opened her mouth as if to protest, then nodded instead. Angel knew the feeling. One part of him was in a rush to do exactly as Cordelia had said – work something out between them. The other part of him would just as soon put that discussion off forever. They’d been doing just fine without it thus far, right?
Without a word, Angel lifted his sleeping son. Connor stirred only slightly, making himself comfortable with his head resting in the crook of Angel’s neck, and kept right on sleeping. Angel caught Buffy smiling at the two of them. He carried Connor up the stairs to the second floor and into the boy’s room, Buffy following the entire way. The toddler only woke up a bit when Angel went to get him in his pajamas; Connor stirred just enough to cooperate with it all, then curled up in his bed fast asleep once again.
Still silent, Angel led Buffy through the door to his own adjoining room. Neither of them spoke until the door between the two rooms was closed to only a crack and they were abruptly the most alone they’d been since the chance meeting several days before.
“Well,” Buffy breathed after a moment.
“Well,” Angel agreed, but he too could come up with nothing to follow up the statement.
Buffy let out a week grin. “We’re not too good at this, are we?” she asked.
Angel smiled shakily back. “No, I guess we’re not.”
“Pretty pathetic,” Buffy said. “Using your friends and son like a safe zone.”
“Yeah,” Angel agreed.
Buffy shot him an amused look. “You know, this talking and working things out doesn’t work so well if all you do is agree with everything I say in the shortest possible sentences.”
Seriously, Angel sat down on the edge of his bed. “I really don’t know what to say, Buffy,” he said slowly.
“I know the feeling,” she said, leaning up against his dresser. She swallowed audibly. “Tell me what you want, Angel.”
“Buffy...?” he asked, startled and confused by the way she directed the conversation.
She looked at him patiently. “It’s as good a place to start as any,” she said. “Really...in an ideal situation, forgetting for just a moment all the reasons this conversation has waited so many years, what do you want? Do you want me?”
Angel had to take an unnecessary breath before he could answer. “I want you,” he admitted after a moment. “I...I have so enjoyed the last several days. It’s been...”
“Nice?” Buffy suggested.
He gave a small chuckle. “What an inadequate word,” he said. “But, yeah, it’s been nice.”
“It has,” Buffy agreed. “When we weren’t thinking about the past and were just being...I don’t think we’ve ever been so comfortable with each other before.” Her voice held a hint of regret.
“I don’t think so either,” Angel replied. Goodness knows he hadn’t been. He’d wanted her before, he’d loved her before, but he couldn’t think of a time when he’d just been with her before. “I don’t want that to end,” he said.
“But it’s not that simple,” Buffy said.
“No,” Angel agreed. “It never has been. No matter how much we’ve tried to pretend it was.”
She nodded reluctantly. “And the longer we’re around each other, the sooner it’s going to be before we end up in all of those...old patterns again. Putting ourselves through old pain because we want so much....”
Angel couldn’t help but look at Buffy in surprise. “You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?” he said.
“I’ve had a lot of time to,” Buffy replied. “Those times with you were some of my best and my worst, and I wanted to understand why. I wanted to know...so that somehow I could have the good times and not the bad. Even if it wasn’t with you.”
Angel nodded his understanding. That was, after all, part of the reason he had left. A large part of the reason.
“What about you?” Buffy asked.
Angel sighed. “I wasn’t so productive. I spent more time wishing I could be the normal guy that I wanted you to have...but still be able to keep you safe.”
Buffy gave him a sad smile. “That’s a tall order,” she said.
He nodded. “I do know that I don’t want another three years to go by before I see you again.”
Buffy nodded eagerly back at that statement. “Not just see,” she said, “but talk. How did we fall so incredibly out of touch?”
“I don’t know,” Angel replied.
“I feel like I’ve missed so much,” Buffy said unhappily. “I don’t want to miss anymore. Even if...we can’t do any more than talk...I don’t want to lose that. I don’t want to lose this.”
“I don’t, either.”
The moment seemed to hold its breath, the very air vibrating between them.
“I still love you.”
Their words mingled, both of their voices combining with the same words and the same feelings. Their gazes met with no one between them, no one to roll their eyes at the waves of emotion that crashed in the small room. Never had four words been quite so intense.
Buffy gave a shaky laugh, breaking the moment. “Well,” she said uneasily, “now that that’s out there....”
Angel met her uncertain smile. “It is,” he agreed. Then, he smiled a bit more certainly. “I’m glad it is.”
“So am I,” she said back. “We will...stay in touch, won’t we, Angel?”
“Of course we will,” he said quickly.
“And...we will work something out?”
“Yes,” Angel said with sincere confidence. An idea dawned on him then, and he looked at Buffy hopefully. “I don’t suppose you’d mind a visitor or two in Sunnydale every once in a while...” he suggested.
“You and Connor?” Buffy asked.
Angel nodded.
“New Years?” she suggested.
Angel was genuinely startled. He hadn’t been expecting anything so soon. “You mean that?”
Buffy gave him an amused smile. “That depends. Are you coming?”
“I...”
A distressed wail from the next room interrupted Angel’s affirmative response. He jumped from his position on the bed and ran into Connor’s room barely seconds after the first cry was heard. He found the toddler sitting up in bed, shaking, his stuffed animal clutched to his chest in a death grip. There were tears streaming down his face. Without a word, Angel lifted him from the bed and carried him back into his room.
Buffy’s expression was concerned when she saw the two of them enter. “What’s wrong?” she asked in a rush.
“Nightmare,” Angel said softly, even as Connor continued to sob into his chest. “Is that right?” he asked the boy.
He nodded even through his tears, sniffling a bit into Angel’s shirt.
Angel sat carefully on the bed, making little soothing sounds in his son’s ear. His sobs began to subside and he wasn’t shaking so much. Without being asked, Buffy handed Angel a tissue, and Angel flashed her a thankful smile.
“There,” he said, gently wiping the boy’s tears from his face. “Is that better?”
Connor gave a little hiccupping sob and nodded.
“You want to tell me what it was about?” Angel suggested softly.
Connor shook his head in a vehement ‘no.’
Angel knew better than to push the small boy on what he’d dreamed, especially now that he had calmed down. Chances were he didn’t even remember what it was that had upset him so anymore. So Angel just held him, one hand rubbing his back as the very last of his sobs subsided.
Finally, he shifted his son slightly to look at his face. His crying done, he was starting to drift off again. “Okay,” he said, “time for you to go back to bed.”
That woke Connor back up, and he looked at his father with a pleading expression. “Can I stay?” he begged.
That expression was all it took for Angel to give in. “Alright,” he agreed, and Connor clambered from his father’s arms to squirm into the covers at the middle of the bed.
Seeing that Connor expected Angel to stay there with him, Buffy pulled away slightly. “I should be going,” she said softly to Angel.
He was about to give her a soft farewell, but Connor would have none of that. “Stay!” he demanded. Angel shot her a helpless look as Connor made it absolutely known what he wanted. “You sleep here,” Connor said, pointing to the side of the bed on his left.
Buffy complied a touch reluctantly when Angel nodded that it was okay. Once she was lying down, Connor turned his attention to his father. “And Daddy lays here,” he said, gesturing at his other side.
Angel obeyed his son’s commands, lying on his side facing both Connor and Buffy. Buffy smiled at him across his son, even as she kicked off her shoes and made herself comfortable as well. As Angel watched her, she yawned, then flashed him an embarrassed smile. He smiled right back.
It did not take long for Connor to fall asleep once again. Angel lay there in silence, listening to the boy’s breathing until it had become the slow, regular pattern of sleep. Then, once Angel knew that he wasn’t going to wake back up, he carefully lifted his son from the bed, flashing Buffy a smile as he went. She returned it sleepily.
Angel was as silent as only a vampire could be as he carried his son into the next room. Tucking the boy back into his bed, his stuffed animal securely in the crook of one arm, Angel couldn’t help but spare a moment to wonder at his child. He trusted and loved without question as only a small child could, giving Angel a gift he never thought he’d receive. He kissed his son ever so lightly on the forehead, then padded back to his own room.
The sight he found there only served to warm Angel’s heart some more. In his absence, Buffy had fallen sound asleep on his bed. She was snoring very slightly, her head practically burrowing into his pillow. There was a small, contented smile on her face. She looked so peaceful that he could not bring himself to wake her.
Without a word, Angel pulled the covers over Buffy’s sleeping form. Then he removed his shirt and shoes and laid back down on the side of the bed Connor had assigned to him earlier and turned off the lamp at the bedside. Smiling in contentment, he lay there watching Buffy sleep until the clock on the nightstand behind her turned to midnight.
“Merry Christmas, beloved,” he whispered into the darkness.
And then, he drifted off to sleep with that hazy glow of love and happiness in his heart.
On to Part Eight
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